30    Can’t Stay. Can’t Go. Refused asylum seekers who cannot be returned work alongside lawyers to get the right kind of advice around what steps are needed to be taken, and then we would help with the sort of practical support. So that could be arranging trips to embassies, arranging for witnesses to accompany them and write statements, referring them to community groups and things like that. They [community groups] might be able to provide support and evidence that the person is a member of a particular community. When we do send them to embassies, helping them prepare what kind of documentation they need. (Red Cross staff member, Leeds) 3.13.3 Disputed nationality cases The Red Cross refugee support service frequently comes across disputed nationality cases, in which people need to obtain documents to prove their nationality: So there are cases where someone’s nationality is disputed – cases where people need to get documents from their country of origin, and they can’t get those documents. Or where someone needs proof of their nationality to be able to get documents that would mean that they’re able to return home. I think they’re the cases that can’t proceed because they can’t get evidence. So cases where there are disputes about whether somebody is Sudanese or Eritrean, if somebody simply can’t get those documents then you’re in this impasse with the Home Office. (Red Cross staff member, Glasgow 1) The staff member in Leicester mentioned a particular case: Well, it’s like the other day I was with this lady; she’s been refused because the Home Office say she’s Ethiopian. She claims to be Eritrean and she’s got no identification. Now she’s said, “Okay, you say I’m Ethiopian; great, give me an Ethiopian passport.” So we called the Ethiopian embassy here and they’ve said, “We’re not going to give anybody a passport if they don’t have an ID already that proves they’re Ethiopian.” So I said, “Well, she doesn’t have” and they said, “Well, then we won’t be able to help her.” So I thought, okay, let’s call the Eritrean embassy and see what they say. Same thing; they said, “Does she have Eritrean ID?” I said, “No.” They said, “Well, we can’t help.” So the only solution that they gave is that if she finds three members of her family who have an Eritrean ID – but she’s here alone. So she’ll never be able to provide that evidence; so she is in limbo. (Red Cross staff member, Leicester) While the process of obtaining documents or proving nationality continues, the person is left destitute: The difficult thing about it all is the length of time that that takes, and that someone is in destitution. (Red Cross staff member, Glasgow 1) 3.14 Detention Immigration detention refers to the government practice of detaining asylum seekers and other migrants for administrative purposes, typically to establish their identities or to facilitate their immigration claims resolution and/or removal (Silverman 2016). It is an administrative process rather than a criminal procedure. At least seven of our participants had been in detention at some point. Five were detained on arrival in the UK and claimed asylum while in detention. Violet (Zimbabwe) arrived in the UK in 2003. She was detained in 2008 and was released from detention because the Zimbabwe Association campaigned for her release. Joshua (Ethiopia) arrived in the UK in April 2000. He was detained in March 2005 and spent a total of four months in detention: They catch me for I sleep in the street rough. They arrest me and put me in police station for two weeks, and then take me to detention, and I stay there for three months. They try to remove me. They take me to airport, Heathrow, on 6 June 2005, and when I reached there they tell me that my flight was cancelled, and they don’t tell me reason why. And they put me back in detention and released me a month later, only to be homeless. (Joshua, Ethiopia) 3.15 Statelessness The UK statelessness procedure was introduced in April 2013. The Birmingham, Leeds, Leicester and Teesside Red Cross refugee support services have all referred cases to the Liverpool Law Clinic, which specialises in working with stateless people. The Leeds service found that the clinic has not recently had the capacity to take on referrals. The Leeds staff member acknowledges: “It’s quite a complicated application to make and to get accepted.” For this reason, and because no legal aid is available, local solicitors are reluctant to take on such cases: